I am really sick of my dogs right now. As bad luck would have it, Asbjørn is one of those “rare exception” male dogs who can still “do the deed” after being neutered. Making matters worse, in this country it’s nigh-on impossible to have a female dog spayed (the surgery costs roughly $800 American — I call it de facto illegalization), which means that Lucy’s heat cycles are very much a part of our lives. For the past several days the two of them have been engaging in futile mating acts, and all of the wild-eyed sniffing and panting and post-coital slurp-licking that goes along with it. It’s just gross and I want it to be over. Somehow, we simply have to come up with the cash to have Lucy spayed before she comes into heat again in the spring. I can’t take two weeks of this twice every year for the rest of her life.

I know I’ve said it before, but I am truly baffled and infuriated by the state of spaying/neutering affairs here in Sweden. Eight-hundred dollars to spay a dog is beyond outrageous. Last time I had a dog spayed in the States it cost me fifty-five dollars (granted, it was seven years ago, but there’s a limit to how much inflation can have raised the price). That’s less than one-tenth of what it costs to have it done here. Neutering a male dog, and spaying and neutering cats, is somewhat more reasonable, price-wise, but it’s still very expensive. By the time everything is said and done, we will have paid roughly $1500 US for the sterilization of our two dogs and three cats, surgeries that, all together, would have cost less than $200 in the States. It’s unconscionable.